


a requiem for the lost days

by trilobites



Series: HQ!! Rare Pairs 2020 [4]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drug Use, Fear, Flashbacks, HQ Rarepair Week, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mortality, Near Death Experiences, Nen (Hunter X Hunter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:55:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23975623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trilobites/pseuds/trilobites
Summary: Sakusa had always thought that he was prepared for the worst ending. As it turned out, he'd been preparing for the wrong kind of ending.
Relationships: Komori Motoya/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Series: HQ!! Rare Pairs 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1724674
Comments: 6
Kudos: 26





	a requiem for the lost days

**Author's Note:**

> For the Haikyuu Rare Pair Week 2020 Day 4 Prompt - 'Victory.'
> 
> Takes place in a HunterxHunter alternate universe, but I don't think much knowledge is needed for the story to make sense.

“I won’t die.”

That was what Komori kept saying. Over and over again, because Sakusa was too chicken shit to do the one thing that would give either of them a fighting chance at surviving this. How had it come to this? It was only a month ago that they’d been in Saherta, waiting to board the airship chartered by the Hunter Association.

The sun had shone bright on the boarding platform that day, as Sakusa stood with Komori and the other members of the expedition team: Miya Atsumu, Bokuto Koutarou, Oikawa Tooru, and that brat, Hinata Shouyou. It was the breezy first day of spring, back when they had all been drawn in by the allure of adventure and the unknown, by the promise of glory for those who returned alive. Each of them had known the risk; the numbers had been recited ad nauseam, after all. 149 trips. Only 5 of which had returning survivors, making a total of 28 people. Only 3 were able to return to their normal lives. In other words, a 0.04% chance of survival.

Of course, all of them had been chomping at the bits for it. So they had boarded the airship without so much as looking back over their shoulders.

And now they were here, sitting in an enclosure that he’d managed to put together the night before. Who knew where the rest of the team had gone? He and Komori had been separated early on, and at the onset, that had worked out for them just fine. Until he’d been stupid enough to provoke the attentions of the Hellbell.

Sakusa knew how to hold zetsu in his sleep, but at the first sign of danger, he hadn’t been able to help himself from shielding himself in a thick armor of nen. The Hellbell had smelled his fear, and it was only thanks to Komori’s quick thinking that they’d gotten out of the swamp without losing their heads. Komori’s ability, Sakeru Gummy, had sealed the Hellbell’s mouth long enough for them both to escape.

As soon as they got to a dry area upland, Sakusa had collapsed, completely out of breath. His face was drenched in sweat, which stung his eyes and dripped into his mouth. Normally, it would have freaked him out, but it didn’t matter right now. Anything to prove that he was still alive. As soon as he could breathe without his chest heaving, he choked out, “Komori.”

Komori didn’t answer. He was too silent. Sakusa looked over, and saw him grasping onto his knee, sweating even harder than Sakusa himself. He’d sat up immediately.

“What is it?”

“I…I think it’s broken.” The line of Komori’s mouth wavered. He was in pain. Sakusa’s head began to spin.

Even completely healthy people had failed to survive these trips. A broken leg was license for any creature or foe to kill without mercy. There was nothing for a broken leg other than rest and time—both of which they were fresh out. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

“Sakusa. Did you hear m—”

“Yes, I fucking heard you!” he snapped. All because he’d been too stupid to conceal his presence while in a swamp presided over by a two-tailed snake. Fuck.

“You need to set this bone,” Komori said. “Then you need to leave me here.”

Sakusa had stared. He hadn’t even thought before he said, quietly, “No.”

“Sakusa.”

Sakusa had stood and hauled Komori up, taken them both to a forested area where predators couldn’t approach without alerting them. His limbs had been steady, his head clear, as he’d laid Komori’s head down on the sleeping pack.

“Can you still use your nen?”

Komori had nodded. His eyes were wet and wide, his fringe sticking to his forehead. Sakusa suddenly remembered when they’d been examinees for their Hunter licenses, when Komori had helped him out of a tree and shown him where to find clean water to live on for the duration of the test. He swallowed.

“Okay. Then wait here.”

It had been a day and a half since then. Since Sakusa had first gone in search of Nitro Rice, something, anything to help. Hell, he would have even taken a Breath of Archangel to be indebted for life to Miya Atsumu if it meant that Komori could walk again. In all that time, he had refused to do either of the things that Komori had asked him to: set the bone. Leave him there.

* * *

“I won’t die.”

Komori was standing beneath him on a lower branch of a World Tree. It was said to be a poorly grown tree, only a third of the size of an actual World Tree. Sakusa had climbed it to escape the other examinees, but now he was stuck. He scowled.

“If I fall on you, and you lose your balance, you won’t be the only one who’s dead.”

Komori laughed. “You’re pretty cautious, aren’t you? I totally didn’t think you’d be like that.”

“We’re _stuck in a World Tree_!”

“Well, _you’re_ stuck in the World Tree. I’m fine.” To demonstrate, Komori swung down from the branches, one by one, until he was climbing down the rest of the trunk and to the forest floor. He shouted up at Sakusa, “See?”

“What the fuck,” Sakusa muttered, low under his breath. It felt like his shoulder was acting up. Was it from clutching onto this branch so hard? He watched with narrowed eyes as Komori climbed back up the tree, ascending up the branches with an ease that Sakusa just couldn’t imagine feeling.

“Okay, so you want to take my help now?” Komori asked. The number ’13’ on the badge on his chest gleamed. They were supposed to be opponents in competition for a Hunter license, so why?

“What do you want in return?” he asked.

“I guess I was hoping we could team up, but if you’re against it, then maybe some food? I don’t know. Can’t you at least get down from there first?”

Sakusa roared in rage, seeing red for no good reason other than that it was awful to accept help from a stranger for something that he had signed himself up for. Then he’d allowed Komori to help him down, one limb at a time. For all his nimbleness, he was stronger than he looked. His grip was steady as he held out a supporting hand to Sakusa, who took it and prayed that Komori wasn’t going to reveal that this had all been an elaborate ruse to push him off the tree after all.

“There. Got you out of the tree like I said.”

Sakusa stood on the flat, solid ground and stretched out his shoulder. It was twinging. He frowned at Komori, whose smile widened expectantly. Sakusa sighed.

“Do…you…want to…team up?”

“Yep!”

Even when they parted ways after getting their Hunter licenses, Sakusa didn’t forget what he owed Komori. Sometimes it made him stay up at night and stare at the ceiling. What the fuck kind of Hunter was he? He would ask Komori sometimes, when they met up over drinks and he ended up face flat on the bar counter.

“A strong Hunter,” Komori would answer. “It’s a strength, too, to know what you can and can’t do.”

* * *

There was a now-empty bowl of Nitro Rice gruel in his lap and a tranquilizer in his fist. He hadn’t told Komori about the tranquilizers yet. He was a Hunter, and not a medically inclined one, either. They were far from home in the Dark Continent, separated from their party, and Sakusa didn’t think now was the best time to learn whether he had a second calling as a doctor. He didn’t want to get Komori’s hopes up, only for him to end up dead.

Before this entire trip, Sakusa had thought long and hard about what to bring. Essentials like food were a given, and so was medicine. He had over-prepared by bringing two bottles of antiseptic. He had underprepared by thinking that would be enough. A thirst for adventure, exceptional nen abilities, great luck. None of that mattered now.

Sakusa looked down at Komori, whose face was growing paler by the hour. His eyes were closed and his breathing shallow. He still had to have been in so much pain. His requests were simple: set the bone. Leave him here. Indecision had become a shroud hanging over the past thirty-six hours. What was Sakusa so hesitant for? If he did nothing, Komori would certainly die. If he did something, Komori might live. The math was obvious, and it was true in either case that it would all have been his fault.

He clenched his eyes shut and felt the glass casing of the tranquilizer grow warm in his hand. It was unbearable to think that for all that Komori had done for him, all Sakusa would have given him in return was an unmarked grave in a faraway land. He surprised himself when his throat closed up with a feeling he didn’t have a name for.

“Are you going to use that on me?” Komori suddenly asked.

Sakusa startled, before he cleared his throat. “Use what?”

“Sakusa, I saw you grab the tranquilizer over an hour ago.”

Komori reached over, and Sakusa didn’t try to stop him. His touch was clammy, his fingers weak as he pushed open Sakusa’s hand to reveal the vial of sedative. The liquid was amber and jostled back and forth with their movements. He’d only ever used it as a weapon.

“Are you going to use this?”

Sakusa nodded. He willed his voice steady when he answered, “If I don’t set your leg now…” He trailed off, unable to go on.

Komori’s hand slid into his, cold and sticky against his palm, and the name came to Sakusa like the first splashing droplets during fox rain: fear. He was fucking scared. After everything that he’d lived through, he had come to think of fear as a thing of the past. Now that he was looking at Komori’s face, pinched with the pain and misery that he must have been enduring all this time, it was obvious how stupid that had been. There was always going to be something that he would be scared to lose.

“I won’t die.”

“You could! You could, and then what am I supposed to do?”

“You’ll think of something then.”

“Seriously? Fuck you.”

Komori squeezed his hand. His grip was steady in spite of Sakusa’s outburst. If anyone should have been scared right now, it was Komori, but here Sakusa was, being messy like he always was. His heart was hammering, so hard he could nearly feel it in his throat.

“Motoya.”

Komori blinked up at him, slow and syrupy. “Will you promise me something?”

He should have said “Anything,” but what he said instead was “What?”

“Whatever you do, don’t be afraid.”

Sakusa nodded. He didn’t know what else to do. Satisfied, Komori’s hand traveled down to his wrist, where he held on as Sakusa prepared the vial to administer the sedative. Sakusa tapped the needle before he pierced the surface of Komori’s skin, right into the vein. He knew that it had worked when Komori’s grip loosened and his brow relaxed, relief from the pain at last. His eyes were hazy now. The rest was on Sakusa alone.

He lowered the tranquilizer to the floor. Set the bone. Leave Komori here. Don’t be afraid. Sakusa would do only one of those things tonight, so he reached for Komori’s leg and felt for the ridges of the fracture. Only when the new day broke would Sakusa know whether he had succeeded.

What else he didn’t know was that their story would go on afterwards, much further beyond that day.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you again for reading! I am ever touched by the fact that my stories get read, especially these rare pair entries. This is a little bit different than my usual HQ!! fare, but I hope that you enjoyed it nevertheless.
> 
> Some fun facts about this AU:
> 
> 1) Sakusa is an Enhancer; Komori is a Transmuter.  
> 2) Atsumu (Enhancer) collects rare artifacts, which is why Sakusa speculates that he may be in possession of Breath of Archangel.  
> 3) At this point in the story, Atsumu and Bokuto (Specialist) are with Oikawa (Manipulator). Hinata (Specialist) is stranded on his own.
> 
> The title comes from a lyric in the 5th opening song of HxH, [Hyori Ittai](https://youtu.be/eKoD2CRr_KA). I have many complicated feelings about HunterxHunter, but it is a rich world that I love to explore. I hope that you will too!
> 
> EDIT (06/20/2020): Shoutout to Furudate for making me write unintentional incest. I won't delete this or the other stories of this ship, but I realize that they have not aged well.


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